Wordstock Book Festival? Sure. Why not?

So I get an e-mail from a volunteer publicist asking me to mention in this very space the Wordstock Book Festival to be held at the Oregon Convention Center, Nov. 9-11.

So there, I did it. You're welcome.

I've never been the Wordstock Book Festival, now in its 3rd year.

Perhaps you have. Should I go? Should we go? Together? As a group?

Just so you know how the festival's e-marketeer (that's her term for herself) perceives you and me, here's why she thought we might be interested in the festival: "It might be of interest to you and your readers that there is a panel on investigative journalism on Saturday (Nov. 10) at 1:30 with Lance Williams, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Nigel Jaquiss."

She also offered the complete schedule for authors speaking at the festival.

I have now devoted far, far more space than intended to The Wordstock Book Festival.

My problem is that I don't have a policy for press e-releases, if that's what they are called. In the newspaper business, they have these things covered with a book's worth of policies. But this, obviously, isn't a newspaper. (I do put out an on-line newspaper, Hillsdale News, and, yes, I do have a policy. To make the cut, your event must pertain to Hillsdale — and be vaguely interesting.)

With blogs, especially ones as amorphous as this one, the blogger makes it up on the fly. But then that must be obvious. One day I'm slashing away at Jobdango signs in the public right of way or Flowmax ads during the World Series, the next I'm mired in the subject of consensus, Interstate Avenue and Christianity, and then, without any warning what-so-ever, it's a captioned photo of my hysterical Charlie Brown pumpkin.

So here, on the fly, is my policy regarding publicizing events: I welcome all comers, who will be mercilessly subjected to whatever whim strikes me.

My overall policy (at least for today) is: If it seems right, do it.

Wordstock Book Festival? Sure, why not?